Read Supplier Barcodes With Handheld Scanners

My customer wants suppliers to deliver barcodes on the products they deliver to them.
These barcodes should contain het CUSTOMERS material number as well as the quantity of the delivered materials.
Difficulty here is that the supplier possibly delivers these materials to a certain number of customers and that the barcode should only contain our customers data (like the materialnumber).
Has anyone suggestions to solve this issue?
Thanks!

The UPC (12) or EAN 13 and the I-2-of-5. Are the bar-codes. the UPC usually represent the indivual or Each package. The I-2-of-5 has a prefix which indicates the package type (i.e., case, box, pallet, etc.), The middle of the I-2-of-5 is the UPC. All of these are supported by SAP in the Material master (including on the alternate Units of Measure). If you set those up, you can get the functionality you want. Basically the Vendor could give you the I-2-of-5 and the alternate UOM and the quantity conversion to base UOM.

Then, you just need to get your handhelds talking to SAP and have that trigger the Goods Receipt.

I would expect that some companies are doing this and some information to be out there to help.

Cheers

John

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Usually there are barcodes already on most things. It is either the UPC code or "I 2 of 5" code which usually includes the information plus the UPC code in it. But, the customer should be able to match that to their material.

I do not recall all of this because I am no longer at a manufacturing firm. the code itself does not include the material number it is attached to a material. Has your customer looked into their SAP system around CMIR's and the rest of the material master data? It is usually the vendor that sets the UPC and "I 2 of 5".

We want to use the EAN13 barcodes but I wonder if the barcode printed at the manufacturer/supplier can be used by the customer. The content of the barcode should then contain the quantity of materials (that's no problem) but also the customers material number. And I am not sure if, and if so, how this works.

Mark, customer specific labeling is quite common in most industries,( except in retail as John mentions, there you have the benefit of standardization) in other industries customers usually define labeling standards usually as part of a ASN initative that suppliers are asked to comply to.

So not sure what you are asking but if you are looking for guidance I would look for ASN's and look for example ASN documents from other industries and most of them have specific label requirements (such as their customer number etc.) that you can use as a guide.

Thanks for your replies.
Actually it comes down to this question:
Is it possible for the customer to scan the barcode which the supplier has put on the materials. So that when the customer scans the barcode label the Goods receipt is being carried out automatically.
And if this is possible can this be carried out with the EAN13 code or should another one be used?

The UPC (12) or EAN 13 and the I-2-of-5. Are the bar-codes. the UPC usually represent the indivual or Each package. The I-2-of-5 has a prefix which indicates the package type (i.e., case, box, pallet, etc.), The middle of the I-2-of-5 is the UPC. All of these are supported by SAP in the Material master (including on the alternate Units of Measure). If you set those up, you can get the functionality you want. Basically the Vendor could give you the I-2-of-5 and the alternate UOM and the quantity conversion to base UOM.

Then, you just need to get your handhelds talking to SAP and have that trigger the Goods Receipt.

I would expect that some companies are doing this and some information to be out there to help.

To perform what you asked you need a little bit more than this, the standard way of performing what you are describing is using a combination of an ASN (EDI) and the SSCC (serializd shipper container code), this would be the only way to perform a automatic Goods receipt. This provides a link between the product you are receiving and the actual order that it comes from. If you only use what John describes all you can do is identify the product but you would not know what PO number, shipment etc. that it refers to.

Typically the UPC is not used for shipments but for retail packaging as John describes. and the ITF-14 (Interleaved 2 of 5 which is just a barcode type) is used to identify a package level of a product so a case of 12 bottles of shampoo for example.

The way this works and you can find plenty of documentation on this via google but the vendor sends you a ASN that describes what they shipped referencing your PO number and also including the SSCC numbers for each box or pallet in the shipment, thus when you scan the SSCC at your dock your system identifies it and can post the automatic GR as it finds the related ASN number and has all the necessary info with which to perform a PO receipt.

Then, you have a barcode on a six pack of bottles of water. This would be an I 2-of-5 (letter i) The first part of an I 2-of-5 is the packaging type, but in the end it is just a set of numbers.

To use it and the EAN/UPC, you would enter these numbers on the material master. Transaction MM03 (display material master) and enter a material number. You only need to check the Basic data to get where we need to go. Then click the additional data button. Next click the Units of measure tab. You will see a column EAN/UPC column. This is where the relationship is built.

Usually the barcode reader will send back the numbers. A MM functional person should be able to help with some of this.